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Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Comparison Between Conventional Radiography and Computed Tomography

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Comparative Interpretation of CT and Standard Radiography of the Chest

Part of the book series: Medical Radiology ((Med Radiol Diagn Imaging))

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Abstract

Traditionally, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) includes pulmonary emphysema and chronic bronchitis. This definition of COPD has been recently modified by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease, which has defined it as a disease state characterized by airflow limitation that is not fully reversible. Pathologically, the chronic airflow limitation characteristic of COPD is caused by a mixture of small airway disease and parenchymal lung destruction. Computed tomography (CT) is superior to chest radiography in the detection of emphysema and in the assessment of its distribution and extent. The introduction of multidetector CT (MDCT) allows acquisition of high-resolution scans in a volumetric manner over the entire lung, and this approach has been shown to be suitable for the assessment of emphysema. The inherent limitations of subjective visual scoring, the characteristic CT morphology of emphysema, and the digital nature of the CT dataset have fostered considerable interest in the use of CT as an objective quantification tool for pulmonary emphysema. The evaluation of the airways on chest radiograph is limited, but it provides an ideal contrast in composition for CT image analysis. MDCT now allows for the acquisition of a contiguous thin section. The current techniques for evaluation of COPD increase the importance of MDCT beyond the clinical context toward its truly experimental and preclinical research modality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Radiology, Hôpital Erasme, Université libre de Bruxelles, 808 Route de Lennik, 1070, Brussels, Belgium

    Pierre Alain Gevenois

  2. Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, 02215, MA, USA

    Diana Litmanovich & Alexander A. Bankier

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  1. Diana Litmanovich
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  2. Alexander A. Bankier
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  3. Pierre Alain Gevenois
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Clinique Saint Luc, Dept. Radiology, Université Catholique Louvain, avenue Hippocrate 10, Bruxelles, 1200, Belgium

    Emmanuel E. Coche

  2. Service Imagerie Médicale, CHU de Liège, Liège, 4000, Belgium

    Benoit Ghaye

  3. Academisch Ziekenhuis, Afd. Radiologie, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan 101, Bruxelles, 1090, Belgium

    Johan de Mey

  4. Academisch Ziekenhuis, Afd. Radiologie, Universiteit Gent, De Pintelaan 185, Gent, 9000, Belgium

    Philippe Duyck

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Litmanovich, D., Bankier, A.A., Gevenois, P.A. (2011). Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Comparison Between Conventional Radiography and Computed Tomography. In: Coche, E., Ghaye, B., de Mey, J., Duyck, P. (eds) Comparative Interpretation of CT and Standard Radiography of the Chest. Medical Radiology(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79942-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79942-9_14

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